Gas Powered Games has laid of some staff shortly after the launch of their Wildman Kickstarter seeking $1.1 million for a new action/RPG. This is reported by Kotaku, who confirmed that the company has cut some staff with honcho Chris Taylor after getting wind of them through the grapevine. Taylor did not confirm the extent of the layoffs, however, so there are dramatic elements to the Kotaku report which remain speculative, as one source told them these were due to the Kickstarter underperforming, while other sources have told them that almost everyone who worked for the company was let go. There's a follow up to this on Gamasutra. "The studio is still operating, but we had to slim WAY down to conserve cash reserves," Chris Taylor confirmed for them, confirming some earlier comments that they are all in on Wildman: "We spent all the last dough that we've had, and the last several months working on it. So we're betting the company on it."

Post CommentEnter the details of the comment
you'd like to post in the boxes below and click the button at
the bottom of the form.

Dev wrote on Jan 19, 2013, 12:30:Its very common for game companies to lay off people between games, and re-hire them when games need a team to work on them.

This is actually GOOD of them and shows GOOD planning to do this before they run completely out of reserves, which would lead to them being bankrupt. Doing it before that point means they can continue until they get a game going (which they are hoping is wildman).

I think you're confusing "good" with "less than fucking horrible". Massive layoffs with reserves is a less horrible plan than closing the company...but it's a long way from a good plan, except for the owners.